


To Those Left Behind

by materva



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: Family Feels, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Moving On, mentions of Conrad's unnamed mother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:35:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23762416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/materva/pseuds/materva
Summary: It’s an old Rigelian custom Halcyon had taught him: burn a special candle on the anniversary of a loved one’s death, and the smoke will carry your prayers to their soul in the land of the dead.
Relationships: Anthiese | Celica & Conrad
Kudos: 10





	To Those Left Behind

When Conrad shakes Anthiese awake, there’s a moment where she doesn’t recognize him. She stares up at him with eyes wide, scared, and unseeing, and her whole body is tense like she’s about to throw herself into a fight. And then her expression clears and she asks sleepily, “Brother?”

“You’ve been sleeping all afternoon,” Conrad tells her quietly. “It will be dinnertime soon. You should eat something.” It makes him slightly guilty to wake her up, since she had looked so young and peaceful while she napped and now her mouth is already flattening into its usual worried frown.

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” Anthiese says, sitting up and swinging her feet to the floor. She’s still wearing the clothes she had put on that morning, but her friend Mae had untied her boots and thrown a spare quilt over her once everyone had agreed to let her be. She rubs at her eyes, still looking a little disoriented. “Someone should have woken me earlier.”

“Nobody wanted to. You clearly haven’t been sleeping well lately.” The dark smudges under her eyes, still visible even after sleeping most of the day, are evidence of that. “Besides, I don’t think that anyone minded having a whole day to relax.”

Anthiese makes a sound of concession, though she still doesn’t look very pleased. “Where is everyone?” she asks.

“Downstairs. The inn gives a discount on meals to anyone who’s purchased a room. I’ll bring you there once you’re ready.”

There’s a maid lighting the lanterns on the stairs, who doesn’t give them a second glance as they pass by. The town that they’re in is still close enough to the border that a group of mostly Zofian travellers doesn’t draw much attention, and it doesn’t hurt that Conrad is surprisingly not the only one of them who looks and speaks like someone from the heart of Rigel. The maid nods at them and returns Conrad’s casual greeting before moving on.

“I’m almost surprised you still remember how to speak Zofeso,” Anthiese remarks. “You’ve been living in Rigel for so long and your mother used to speak with you in Dozny Yazik too, didn’t she? I remember you had a slight accent.”

“Halcyon had me practice with him. He said it was a good skill to keep.” Conrad tilts his head at her. “You know, you have an accent now too. You speak like an islander when you aren’t paying attention.”

“I suppose I have been living in Novis for a long time as well.” She smiles, but there’s something melancholy about it.

Even after being reunited with Anthiese, Conrad still finds himself missing her. There’s a distance of many years between them that’s full of a thick, black haze of grief, and some days he’s not sure if he will ever be able to find his way through it. But then she will give him a quick, sly smile or square her shoulders with the same fearless determination to face the future that she has always had, and he’s reminded all over again that she’s still his little sister no matter what. His love for her is as steady as the north star.

Anthiese knocks purposefully into him, her shoulder only reaching halfway up his bicep. He looks down to see her staring at him with an odd expression.

“Is something the matter?” he asks, reaching up to feel if there’s anything stuck to his face.

Anthiese shakes her head. “No. Only… I don’t remember her very well, but mentioning your mother made me realize that you look just like her.”

“Ah, well, you would not be the first person to say so. I think it’s the height,” he jokes. Her words cause a flutter of happiness in his chest, because he will never not be pleased to be compared to his mother. He hopes that it means that she would be proud of the man he has become. “I’m sure you’ve been told you look very much like Liprica as well. It’s a funny coincidence that we both took after our mothers so much.”

“Better than the alternative.”

Conrad grimaces. “Very true.”

Their companions are audible even before they’ve reached the entrance to the tavern. They’ve spread out across the tables in an entire corner of the room and seem to be on at least their second round of cheap beer with no actual food in sight. They are loud and messy and Anthiese visibly brightens when she sees them. It is a precious thing to see her looking so happy and carefree, even if it is just for a moment.

Conrad clasps her shoulder and steps back. “As you see, your friends await you. I shall leave you here.”

Anthiese turns with him, grabbing his sleeve. “You aren’t coming? Have you already eaten?”

“I am not eating today,” he explains. “It’s tradition in Rigel to fast on the anniversary of a loved one’s death and burn candles for them in remembrance.”

“You’re mourning someone?”

That stops him in his tracks. “You don’t know?” 

“Know what?” Anthiese asks, her forehead creasing in concern. “Conrad?”

He almost doesn’t want to say it aloud and ruin the warmth of the moment, but the longer he takes to reply the deeper Anthiese’s frown becomes. “My mother died today,” he says.

It’s as if his blunt words push the background noise away, leaving the two of them in a strange bubble of silence. Anthiese looks confused. “Oh.” She hesitates. “But didn’t she die in-?” He can see comprehension bloom on her face, and then the horror and regret that follow soon after.

“Eight years ago, the king’s summer villa was set on fire and the inhabitants were slaughtered,” he confirms. “Anthiese… I thought you knew. I thought that this was what has been bothering you lately.”

“No, that’s something else,” she says absently. “Conrad, I’m sorry. I should have realized.”

“No,” Conrad denies, hoping she can hear his sincerity. “If you can forget about it then I’m glad. It was a terrible thing that happened.”

“It’s not that I’ve forgotten about it. I… I remember waking up in the middle of the night to find that people were screaming and everything was on fire. I thought I was having a nightmare. Even now, I still barely understand what happened.” Something dark flashes over her face and vanishes as she shakes her head. “I couldn’t believe it was really happening. When I went to sleep everything was normal and the next day everything was…”

“There’s no need to say anything further.” Conrad’s throat feels painfully tight and his body as heavy as stone. “I understand.”

Most likely Anthiese will never want to talk about it, but he has begun to realize that she does not feel the same nostalgia for their childhood that he feels. She does not mourn its absence as he mourns. All of his best memories are from back then, but it’s different for her, even if it hurts him a little to think it.

Anthiese takes his hands between her own small, strong ones. “It does not mean that I didn’t remember  _ you _ , though,” she says, barely loud enough to be heard. “Sometimes I think you were the only person there that I loved. I’ve always missed you.”

“There’s no reason to miss me anymore. I’m right here,” Conrad tells her. He squeezes her hand in return before slipping free of her grasp and clearing his throat. “And you have other people to love now too. You should go and stop them before they drink all the beer in this place and cause the locals to riot.”

“Or maybe I’ll help them drink it all instead,” she teases gently. “Conrad, come join us once you’re done, even if you don’t eat, okay?”

“Alright,” Conrad agrees easily.

He watches as she turns and heads over to her devoted group of rag-tag soldiers. When he begins to walk back up the stairs, he can feel the tug of it, that shining thread tied around his heart and hers, binding them together. Even when they are distant from each other, they will never be apart.

In his own room, Conrad unwraps the two candles from the wax paper he keeps them in. They’re old and worn with time and use and their wicks are black and curled. He sets one of them down on the small table under the room’s dirty window but keeps the other in his hands, running his fingers gently over the familiar pattern carved into the underside of the candle.

When Halcyon had given him these candles they had been twice as tall and so freshly made they had still smelled of honeycomb. He had helped Conrad carve his mother and sister’s names into the smooth wax at the bottoms while carefully explaining the tradition. Fast for the day, so that there is less tying your body to the earth. Light a candle in the last hour of daylight, so that the smoke will take your prayers and follow the setting sun down to the land of the dead. Carve a name into the wax, so that the smoke knows which soul to bring your prayers to.

A surge of emotion overtakes him and Conrad roughly digs his fingers into the wax, carving out the name he so carefully inscribed in it all those years ago. Bits of wax lodge themselves underneath his fingernails and litter the floor, but he doesn’t stop until there’s nothing to show what the candle used to bear. When he is done, it is as if a weight has been taken off his shoulders. The chill of grief that has been hanging over him all day is pushed back by relief. He sets the candle aside thoughtlessly and allows himself a moment to breathe.

Then Conrad gets back up and lights his mother’s candle.

He cracks the window open just enough for the smoke to escape and sits down to watch as the smoke begins to rise. It curls in the still air, as if it is waiting for him to speak.

He begins as he usually does. “Mama, it’s me, Conrad. I hope that you haven’t forgotten me, and that you are doing well, wherever you are. I’m still alive, as you can surely tell.” He glances to the side, at the other candle that he will leave behind when he goes, his bag ten times lighter. He can feel his eyes grow wet. “It has been a good year.”

Halcyon had sat with him as he prayed to the candles those first few years and forced him to blow them out after the hour had passed. Keep them lit any longer, he warned, and the smoke will steal your soul away as well and carry you away from the living. If Halcyon had not been there, he would have kept those candles lit for however long such a thing took. His prayers had been cruel and bitter things back then. He raged at his mother for being left behind and begged her to take him with her. He told her he hated her for sending him away. He could barely call his sister’s name.

It has not been like that for some time now. Today it is like that even less. He’s sure that his mother will be pleased to hear that he was not the only one who survived the fire, if she doesn’t already know. He will thank her, in this hour, for loving him enough to save him, for letting him meet Anthiese again.

**Author's Note:**

> no one can ever convince me that an entire continent the size that valentia seems to be speaks a single language, or even as few as two languages


End file.
